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Between buying boxed dress-shirt-and-tie combos and asking your slightly-better-at-grammar roommate to make sure you’re correctly using “affect” on your resume, you’ve probably spent a fair amount of time looking for interview tips. The problem is, interview advice guides generally say the same damn thing: “Ask lots of questions,” “check your social media sites,” etc. But it’s 2015, so we dispensed with all the obviousness, and asked some seriously 21st-century experts for their advice on wowing the suit on the other side of the table. Here’s what they said:

Make yourself a website

Making a resume stand out is tricky (and we’ll get to one technique in a sec), but one way to do it is to make a website highlighting flashy projects and experience. Think of it as an interactive resume where actual projects can come to life. While this is a literal requirement for creative fields, it can be a real eye-opener for other lines of work. Email marketer? Highlight some campaigns and stats that totally nailed a previous job. Environmental scientist? Show some activist initiatives you helped get off the ground, and why they made a difference.

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Put your resume in landscape

There’s debate here amongst recruiters and hiring professionals, but flipping the boring portrait resume on its head is a way to stand out, especially for a creative position. For starters, it shows your ability to design something nice. But recall, again, that we’re in a modern world, so your res most likely won’t even be printed until you bring it in yourself. So, seeing as the prescreen will be done via widescreen monitors (that are, you guessed it, in landscape orientation), you might want to make your PDF fit just a bit better.

Make your impression within five minutes

According to a recent Harvard Study, in this 2015 landscape, you only have five minutes to make your first impression. Whether you choose to offer a genuine smile, joke around, or go for the firm posture, doing so late in the interview won’t do you any good. You’ve got to own the first impression within that first five for it have any impact in the hiring decision.

Do not overdress

There is some truth to “dress for the job you want,” but hiring managers don’t advise going overboard (unless you love monocles and somehow have an in for being the next Monopoly guy). During your phone interview, ask the recruiter what the dress code is like at the office. While you do want to dress better than the average person at the company, wearing a three-piece suit at a t-shirt-and-jeans workplace (which are really common nowadays) shows that you are painfully unaware of the company culture you’re vying for.

Be. Your. Self.

Several of the hiring managers we spoke to, including two high-level guys in Silicon Valley, let us in on the secret that not only is “social fit” a factor in their hiring decision, it could ultimately discount an otherwise perfect hire. Some companies even mix in culture-only interviews to get a sense for your personality. So, while just acting normal (read: not turning into a stressed out, overthinking mess) was always good advice when answering high-pressure interview questions, in 2015, it is now a legitimate factor in many companies’ decisions to even consider you as a viable candidate.

Get real comfortable with the question “why”?

Listing the jobs you’ve held or even the projects you’ve completed on a resume or website isn’t all that hiring managers are looking for. In today's job search, they want to know why you did the work you did for the companies, and why it was a success. Try listing the objective for each role/project on your application, and then explain exactly how you achieved said objective (were you trying to hit a click-through percentage of 2%? Were you trying to get high-profile media coverage of your company’s new branding launch? Say so.).

Don’t wear orange

A ton of studies and surveys have been conducted that indicate that grays, whites, and dark, unassuming colors are the safest. But playing it safe won’t grab you any attention. The color you wear says a lot about your personality to an interviewer -- blue = cooperative and pleasant, red = power, etc. But, while bright colors can indicate that you’re creative and vibrant, the most resounding, emphatic response from most modern hiring managers is to absolutely never wear orange. It’s too jarring, and will draw too much attention away from your qualifications.

Say as few words as humanly possible

While detailed descriptions of accomplishments are necessary, delivering said accomplishments as efficiently as possible will allow for more questions, and thus, more information learned in the interview. According to a high-ranking marketer at social media companies when asked about the modern interview, “Succinctness is key. Be thorough, but the shorter the answers, the more questions I can ask.”

Make it clear that you're also interested in other jobs

According to an editor-in-chief at a major travel publication “asking what a hiring manager’s specific hopes and dreams for a role are can be huge.” It shows that you are weighing options for your job search, making sure this is the role you want, just as they’re weighing options for their candidate search.

Do the phone interview on your terms

If a hiring manager calls you by surprise, unscheduled, tell them you aren’t in front of your desk and will need to call them back. The assumption may be that you need to bend over backwards for an interviewer’s schedule, but conducting a phone interview in your PJs, half-asleep, will almost guarantee that you won’t get a callback. It’s 2015, an interviewer understands that you’re on a cell phone and would expect you to only participate in a phone interview at an appropriate time for you. So put it off ‘til you’re ready, if you have to.

Do a work sample before you’re asked

Most jobs ask for some sort of trial -- whether it’s a critique session in the interview, a writing sample as homework, or your take on a recent project. And while several of our experts caution that coming in too hot with preemptive solutions to problems can feel “arrogant” (the biggest no-no of them all), it’s worth at least coming prepared. In this day and age, it’s pretty easy to look at most companies’ recent endeavors, so do some research about the company and the business landscape as a whole, and prepare your solution to an actual real-life problem the company faced… before you’re inevitably asked.

Comb your social media for offensive material

Those pretty-much-nude pictures of you at the Kappa party from 2009 probably shouldn’t be front and center on your social pages. But what about that borderline offensive tweet you posted two years ago and totally forgot about? Enter the Clear iPhone app. After getting canned from Jeb Bush’s campaign team for just such an unfortunate 160 characters, Ethan Czahor went to work on Clear, an app that combs your Twitter for possibly offensive subject matter.

But don’t erase your whole social life

While a magic fix-all for inappropriate virtual jokes is great, one of our experts cautioned against sterilizing your online world too much. In a time where many jobs require an understanding of social media, or at the very least, when bosses know that everyone uses social media, a conspicuously conservative online presence might raise a red flag that you are: A) a complete wet blanket and not a creative thinker who has friends and does things, or B) your social media image is so bad that you erased it completely. Both scenarios are bad.